


The Limits of Imagination

by Caprichoso



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Metafiction, and Adrien is lonely, in which nothing is real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 07:46:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6946228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caprichoso/pseuds/Caprichoso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the story of Ladybug and Chat Noir seems a bit too perfect, filled with too many coincidences to suspend disbelief, there is a logical explanation. The Heroes of Paris are, after all, merely the creations of a lonely homeschooler desperate for freedom.</p>
<p>Depressing metafic in which Adrien imagines it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Limits of Imagination

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who’s back with a fandom that won’t get out of my head? I’ve been (probably more than) mildly obsessed with ML for a while now, but this is the first I’ve written for it. This falls somewhere between regular fanfic and meta discussion, centered around the whole Miraculous world being an invention of a lonely, homeschooled Adrien Agreste. It’s a depressing concept at its core, so keep that in mind before you decide to read it.

Adrien Agreste, as with all children, imagines a different life. 

  
Simply envisioning going to school like a normal child has been enough to occupy his imagination for years; for someone who has never had that opportunity, it’s a powerful fantasy in and of itself. Hours can be filled picturing the classroom, fumbling with bits and pieces of objective knowledge to recreate the experience. One day a chalkboard, the next a whiteboard, testing out teachers with different voices, different names. Individual desks on a level floor, benches on varying levels. Over the years, Adrien has settled on a vague image of the classroom, has a few different teachers he can summon at will. He has no idea if his vision is accurate in the least, but it serves his purposes. It’s far more fun to imagine his classmates, anyway.  
  
He’s cobbled together quite a few of them, amalgamations of children he’s met briefly or seen on the street, fleshed out with classroom archetypes he’s researched and hobbies he finds unique or fitting for each of them. He’s fond of his creations, but his best friend is something else. Nino is a real person, actual flesh and blood, though Adrien hasn’t seen him in years. They had been inseparable… until a job offer in Canada for Nino’s mother had separated them, and the lines of communication had gone silent as Nino found new companions. Part of Adrien feels guilty for maintaining his version of Nino, for allowing him to age and develop along with Adrien, but he can’t deny himself the thought that maybe, if Nino had stayed, they would still be friends.  
  
As Adrien grows older, adolescent yearnings stirring in his chest, he imagines yet another layer to this self-indulgent fantasy life away from the ever more claustrophobic confines of his father’s home. As his voice cracks and his body develops, the sense of awakening potential turns his mind to the subject of heroes and superpowers, and he reaches for a pencil and a notebook to record his imaginings for the first time. A normal life of school and friends, fantastical as it may be for him, is no story; balancing that normal life with heroic exploits and secret identities? _That_ is a story.  
  
Before a hero can be born, though, there must be a need for the hero’s existence. And the easiest way to accomplish that is to create a nemesis.  
  
For the villain, Adrien conjures up a vision with little to no effort, unwilling to admit just why he can picture the man so vividly. Elegant to a fault, chillingly composed, an expert manipulator with a vision of grandeur that requires power, conquest, expansion, to the exclusion of all else and at the expense of others. It rings true… and if Hawkmoth speaks in a voice too close to someone Adrien knows, he shakes his head and deepens the tone, adds more rasp. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.  
  
The Akumas are a simple concept, but sometimes the simple ideas are the best. Life is unfair, perhaps never more so than in the early teenage years, when hormone fluctuations can turn a mild disappointment into the ultimate miscarriage of justice. The temptation to rage against these ills, to stop biting one’s tongue, to act out and lash out and rebel… it’s a temptation Adrien knows all too well, though he’s too scared to succumb to it in real life. Perhaps, if he weren’t styling himself as the hero, he would join their ranks. It might be a more honest rendition, but fantasies are never about honesty.  
  
This is Adrien’s story to tell, so rather than wreak havoc upon the city, he chooses to save it. To his civilian self, he adds a pair of embellishments, unable to resist the debonair playboy alter ego trope entirely. Adrien Agreste is now a teen model and only son of legendary designer Gabriel Agreste, one of the biggest names in the Paris fashion scene. On the other side of the coin, Chat Noir, free-spirited scamp, is an expression of Adrien’s deepest wish, as is the nature of his powers– bad luck, chaos, destruction. He’s had to be picture-perfect for all his life; of course he would run in the opposite direction at the first possible chance.  
  
Every superhero needs a suit, and the symbolism of Chat Noir’s extends beyond the black cat motif. Adrien has been immersed in the fashion world all his life; he  _knows_ there’s a meaning behind black leather, a reason the ‘bad boy’ image is rife with it. He’s not fully aware of some of the deeper implications, but there’s no way he’s missed the association with something forbidden, taboo, inextricably entwined with indulging secret desires. The actual nature of those desires might turn him bright red if he found out, but when his heroic self dons black leather, it’s simply because he’s a repressed teenager who’s never had a chance to play the bad boy. And if his transformation occurs in the time-honored 'magical girl’ style… Adrien has never denied being obsessed with anime.  
  
Most superheroes have some artifact, some symbol, but that’s not enough for him. The ring he invents isn’t just a totem, a suit, an improbable event leading to even more improbable superpowers; no, that’s not what Adrien needs. More than anything, this lonely boy needs a _companion_ to share in his hero’s journey, and so the kwami is born. Unlike Adrien’s host of invented classmates, Plagg is an imaginary friend in the more traditional sense, the voice in his head saying the things he’s never been allowed to think, much less speak. Is it any wonder that the inner monologue of an overworked teenager is an impudent lazybones?  
  
Still, there’s something missing. The chaos and freedom and mischief that Adrien envisions as Chat Noir isn’t a good fit for the city-saving exploits he imagines, but he can’t bring himself to give those things up, not when they’re everything he wishes he could have in real life. He needs a foil, someone to balance him, to be the light to his dark. The most important part of Adrien’s story has nothing to do with Adrien himself, but rather with his partner. More than once, he considers Nino, but he can’t bring himself to alter his best friend’s memory to that extent.  
  
Adrien’s ideas sit and stagnate, waiting for the right impetus. Finally the right circumstances– a rainy day, a fencing lesson ended early, and no small amount of pleading with his driver– carry him into the bakery that he’s always wanted to visit, right next door to the fencing studio. The forbidden pastry is delicious, and he knows he should be content with this taste of freedom, but he still finds himself wishing he had someone to share it with the way he and his mother had shared sweets together.  
  
It’s in that moment, with Adrien lost in bittersweet thoughts, that Marinette Dupain-Cheng approaches his corner table. She’s shy and tentative in introducing herself as the owners’ daughter, but there’s an honesty about her as she says she doesn’t want him to be lonely on such a beautiful rainy day. When he invites her to sit, it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to start up a conversation with him, and she doesn’t fault him for his silences, his stumbles, his casual use of words no one ever encounters outside of books. Perhaps it’s all out of pity for the sad little boy sitting in the corner, though he doesn’t think so. Even if it is, it doesn’t matter. It’s the first conversation he’s had with a girl of his own age outside of the sphere of his father’s influence, and it feels  _miraculous_.  
  
And when his gaze settles on her spotted earrings and she confesses a fondness for ladybugs, he knows she’s the one.   
  
That night, as Adrien scribbles furiously in his notebook, she’s the heroine he’s been searching for, the Miraculous Ladybug. This girl is everything he is not, effervescent and outgoing and bright in the face of his quiet, wistful gloom. She’s his perfect counterpart in this tale. It doesn’t matter if cats and ladybugs aren’t the most logical pairing; she’s wonderful just as she is, and she makes him feel wonderful too.  
  
And so, with all the key elements in place, the Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir begin. Together they protect Paris from the attacks of the Akumas, united against the evil plots of the villainous Hawkmoth, all while concealing their identities as everyday students– and classmates– from everyone, including each other.  
  
Adrien is utterly smitten with Marinette; therefore, so is Chat Noir with Ladybug. Across the rooftops he tries time and again to woo her with antiquated gallantry in the style of his favorite literary heroes… and a healthy smattering of puns. Still, he can’t be too presumptuous, even in his own mind. Ladybug gently and kindly rebuffs his advances, just as he imagines Marinette would if he were to attempt a courtship in real life. Chat Noir is nothing if not persistent, though, and he holds onto that fantasy within a fantasy just because he can. If he fudges details, fabricates Marinette’s infatuation with his civilian persona for the sake of his own ego, he can’t be judged too harshly. In his mind, every heroic story needs a love story interwoven, and all the better if there are two in one. Besides, he’s made himself a model and heir to a fashion empire instead of the socially awkward son of a workaholic clothing designer; perhaps Marinette _could_ have a crush on him under those circumstances.  
  
Ladybug embodies all of Marinette’s best traits and carries them to the extreme. Being brave enough to talk with a lonely boy becomes the courage to stand against impossible odds and protect the city of Paris. Her creative streak becomes a Lucky Charm that ingeniously saves the day without fail. That gentle voice that soothed the empty places in his heart becomes the power to undo every trace of destruction an Akuma causes. She is fortune and creation and everything that is easy and fitting to love, and she is loved for it.  
  
She takes the spotlight so naturally, and Chat Noir is only too glad to let her have it.   
  
Of course the story doesn’t revolve around Adrien. Of course he takes the sidelines when it comes to the adulation of Paris; the hero must be a beloved figure. Marinette, that sweet, silly, overwhelmingly kind girl from the bakery… she’s the one who should be adored by the masses. Not him.  
  
In his fantasy world, Adrien is free to be himself, to be anything he wants to be.  
  
But even in that fantasy, he can’t imagine being loved.


End file.
